Afghan Attacks on Allied Troops Prompt NATO to Shift Policy

KABUL, Afghanistan — After months of military leaders’ attempts to tamp down worries over the killings of American and NATO troops by the Afghan forces serving beside them, Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, called an urgent meeting of his generals last Wednesday to address the escalating death toll.

In a room crowded with more than 40 commanders, the general underscored the need to quickly stop the bloodletting that is sapping morale, according to NATO officials, part of a new emphasis on protecting American and NATO forces after a spate of attacks that included the killing of six Marine trainers this month.

In one of a series of recent steps, the military decreed that American and NATO service members should always carry a loaded magazine in their weapons, to save precious moments if attacked by Afghan forces. Another initiative, now a priority, is a program named “Guardian Angel” that calls for one or two soldiers to monitor the Afghans during every mission or meeting, officials say.

The “angels,” whose identities are not disclosed to the Afghans, must be prepared to fire on anyone who tries to kill a coalition service member.

The military has also analyzed the attacks. But the results have been worrisome. Only a handful of the 31 attacks this year have clearly been a result of Taliban activity like infiltration. That suggests a level of malaise or anger within the Afghan forces that could complicate NATO’s training program, which relies on trust and cooperation.

The stepped-up efforts to stop the attacks are indications of how destabilizing the deaths of coalition troops at the hands of Afghan colleagues have become, and how much of a threat they pose to the transfer of control to the Afghans when NATO is set to leave in 2014.

They also come at a politically delicate time, just months before the presidential election in the United States and amid increasingly vocal complaints from outraged parents of dead Marines and soldiers that could diminish support for what is already an unpopular war back home.

It remains to be seen if the new measures will make a substantial difference; the attacks have continued despite earlier protections put in place. Just two days after General Allen’s emergency session, there were two more assaults, which left two Special Forces trainers dead and two other American soldiers wounded.

“Regrettably, there will be more setbacks along the way,” General Allen said through a spokesman on Saturday, “but our resolve is fierce, and our commitment to this fight is total.”

But even the new emphasis on stopping the killings carries risks: introducing more barriers between NATO forces and the Afghan soldiers and police officers they are training runs the risk of worsening cultural and personal clashes that have led to some killings.

“We have to have a balancing act between protecting our soldiers and not offending the Afghans we are partnering with,” said Col. Thomas W. Collins, the director of public affairs for the American-led NATO coalition in Kabul.

The catalyst for the latest efforts to protect coalition forces was the attacks on Aug. 10 in Helmand Province that one military official called “game changing.”

Shortly after midnight in Sangin, where Marine Special Operations troops met with the Afghan local police they worked with, an Afghan wearing a National Police uniform opened fire, killing three of the Marines. Hours later, a boy who worked as a tea server at a base a hundred miles to the south sprayed machine-gun fire inside a makeshift gymnasium, killing three other Marine trainers.

What was most alarming to some officials was that all of the casualties in Helmand involved military trainers and not conventional infantry, typically the targets of such attacks. Because they were thought to have closer relationships with the Afghans, the trainers were believed to be safer.

“Wherever someone is from, they cannot tolerate negligence and degradation of their country’s sanctity,” said Alaudin, an Afghan soldier in Khost Province. Anyone who trains Afghan forces and “uses tough and derogatory language will get a similar reaction,” he said. Those who say “the Taliban infiltrated in the army” and are behind the attacks, he said, are “totally wrong.”

Sayed Rahman, a commander in Kunar Province, blames many attacks on soldiers from rural areas whose customs clash deeply with those of their American mentors.

“They do not know anything else except religion and their traditional codes,” he said. “They see attitudes of foreign forces alongside themselves which are not compatible to what they understand. That causes spite and resentment among them.”

Some Afghan commanders say attacks are simply a product of a violent society. “No one is safe now; everyone gets killed,” said Gen. Mohammad Zaman Mamozai, a senior police official in the Interior Ministry.

That could help explain an equally disturbing rise in Afghan forces attacking their Afghan comrades. NATO officials do not have precise year-to-year figures, but there have been at least four such episodes in the past month.

An American diplomat emphasized that the rise in Afghan-on-Afghan attacks underscores how the problem is more complex than infiltration or even anger at Western forces. The diplomat noted that some Afghan leaders like the Helmand provincial governor, Gulab Mangal — who called an emergency meeting after the Helmand episodes and vowed to do everything he could to help Marines — were every bit as concerned as American officials.

No one expects the problem to go away, and some fear it may only get worse as American and NATO troops team up with Afghan forces in almost 9 out of every 10 combat operations. That means more chances for disaffected Afghans, or the occasional infiltrator, to kill an American.

“There are simply more opportunities now because we are partnering so heavily,” Colonel Collins said. According to NATO data, there were 39 coalition deaths from the attacks in the first eight months of this year, more than all of last year and more than the entire period from 2007 to 2010.

Tactical changes have already affected everyday routines of coalition troops. While the order to keep magazines loaded in weapons was already standard practice in a few places, the countrywide edict has dramatically underscored how seriously the threats from Afghan forces are now viewed.

“It sounds like a small thing,” explained one senior American official in Kabul, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the situation. “But it saves three or four seconds in reaction time.”

In at least several unpublicized instances, the Guardian Angel program has either saved the lives of American troops or mitigated casualties from Afghan attacks since it was instituted this year, NATO officials say. At least one coalition soldier is always “ready to aim and fire and take out a threat,” one official explained, describing the program.

And recruits are expected to be more carefully vetted: Some deemed to have taken too many trips to Pakistan, for example, are rejected.

But despite intensified efforts to thwart attacks, some officials say the military is realizing that it ultimately does not fully understand what is driving the attacks, said one American security official in Washington.

Everyone is a “bit desperate,” the official acknowledged. “It’s not that the problem is new — it’s been a problem, we know — it’s that idea of what is driving it that is right at the top of what people are looking at.”

Reporting was contributed by Jawad Sukhanyar and Sangar Rahimi from Kabul; an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Khost Province, Afghanistan; and Matthew Rosenberg from Washington.

A version of this article appears in print on August 19, 2012, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Afghan Attacks Prompt NATO To Shift Policy. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe